A Southern Haunting

I think the concept might have been good, if I'm deciphering this mess correctly, but it's hard to tell. Disjointed, sloppy art direction, and some talented actors in search of a director. Ed Wood much?

And Rusty? You can do better than this dog.

It's a shame this concept wasn't better executed, because the story concept has real potential.

Pure Southern Gothic is great if it is well executed and the rich storyline of the a family in search of mother set in the reconstruction era and facing a haunted farm is a rich canvas. So why didn't we see a better set and costumes. I understand production during the pandemic was limiting, but surely we could have had moodier lighting and a little dirt and dust? It was like this was shot in a museum.

Right, well as I sat down to watch this 2023 horror movie, it was with the release title of "A Southern Haunting", so I figured that I would be in for a ghost movie. However, the title of this movie from writer and directors M. J. Anderson and T. Huff is 40, and that is also what was shown on the screen, during the title sequence of the movie. So the title "A Southern Haunting" was rather misguiding.

The storyline in "40" was somewhat dull and slow paced. It wasn't a particularly interesting storyline, though it was semi-watchable for what it turned out to be. However, I was expecting more of an ordinary haunting movie, instead I was treated to a slow paced tale of former slaves gaining their freedom, but come to acquire some cursed lands. Sure, it sounds interesting enough, but writers and directors M. J. Anderson and T. Huff just never kicked the movie up into any gear.

I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie, but given the circumstances of the weak script, then the actors and actresses actually fared well enough.

Visually, then you're not in for anything spectacular. There were a little bit of special effects throughout the course of the 94 minutes that the movie ran for, but nothing noteworthy or memorable.

All in all, the movie is a rather forgettable movie, and not one I would recommend for horror fans to rush out and get to watch.

My rating of "40" lands on a generous four out of ten stars.

Whomever wrote, produced, filmed, created, or even acted in this movie should rethink this. The movie is not a horror, it's slow to watch, and confusing to follow.

I only continued watching it due to the female actress (Older daughter). I would love to be able to get my wasted time back, but I can't.

This was a horrible movie I would hope they wouldn't make another movie like this.

I have nothing else to say about the movie other than I wish I would not have seen it.

I actually thought the movie was made back in the early 2000's. I can't believe this movie was made in 2023. I could sworn they switched out the actors.

I have no idea what the writer/director was going for in this movie. It's not scary, first of all. Second, it's so slow and disjointed that it's boring and nonsensical. Did most of the movie get cut? Because there was such bizarre cuts between scenes, like one scene you see a boy hunting and then suddenly his dad appears out of nowhere. I'm worried that the director was using a bootleg copy of a film editing app on a really old cell phone.

There's absolutely no explanation or dialogue to describe what is happening for the first half of the film. The "scary" part is a black mist that randomly appears, a guy that goes catatonic for most of the movie, and a woman in a well. Oh wait, two women in a well. This movie was a waste of time, and just confirms that there's no end of money for mediocrity. The actors are all fine, they make the best of really bad material.

Scorsese would weep if he watched this.

Nothing about this movie was thrilling. There were so many things that made no sense. I feel like the writers were stoned 15 year olds who were like let's add all of these things and when someone said "those don't make sense" they all laughed and said "exactly." Waste of time. I expected much more and feel like it could have been done so much better. The story could have had so much more to it. The actors were pretty good though. I will give it that. No idea where the people rating it a 10 we're watching and I wish I could have seen it through their eyes.

Won't watch again and I don't recommend to anyone wanting a thriller or horror movie.